Driven by its open-source and cross-platform nature, VLC Media Player reigns as the best-known alternative media player. Version 1.1 gains hardware acceleration, WebM codec support, and integrates an extensions framework.

Perhaps the best-known alternative media player for Windows and Mac, VLC's popularity has been driven by its open-source and cross-platform nature. The latest update, for Windows, Mac, and Linux, goes to great lengths to keep the player current.

VLC Media Player 1.1 gets extensions, along with a bunch of improvements under the hood.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

VLC 1.1 adds in hardware acceleration on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Linux computers; supports encoding and decoding the HTML5 video and audio codec WebM; better MKV HD support and 40 percent faster HD decoding; introduces lua-based extensions; and has overall better performance because of the removal of "tens of thousands of lines" of code.

There's also a significant subtraction from the media player, if you're a fan of Internet radio. VLC 1.1 removes support for SHOUTcast Radio because, according to a press release, "VLC developers have received several injunctions by e-mail from employees at AOL, asking us to either comply to a license not compatible with free software or remove the SHOUTcast capability in VLC," over the past year. As a response, VLC stopped supporting SHOUTcast, although the top of the press release now indicates that the situation is more fluid than it appeared at first.